


Fight For Freedom

by Nikky_the_writer



Category: Vikings (TV)
Genre: F/M, Reader-Insert
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-11
Updated: 2018-12-06
Packaged: 2019-09-12 13:45:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,903
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16873980
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nikky_the_writer/pseuds/Nikky_the_writer
Summary: Reader is not just a thrall as everyone thinks and she is the one ready to fight for her freedom even if she has to fight the kingAUWarning: cursing, blood





	Fight For Freedom

Your heart was beating rapidly as you held the sword tightly in your grip. Drops of blood were slowly dripping from your face as you ran out of the house where you were attacked. You could taste the blood and saltiness on your lips and you wanted for all to be gone. You hated who you were and you hated the person who made you that way, but none of that mattered as you were surrounded in front of the Great hall with the King staring at you. You didn’t place the sword down and you stared back at him. There was nothing that you could do as nobody would believe you but you weren’t the one to let anyone touch you without your permission. They called you a thrall and you were far from that, but because of the series of bad events, you were forced to be one.   
“She tried to kill me,” the wounded man that followed behind you yelled. He thought that the king would immediately react but Ragnar only stepped closer while his grown sons stayed behind with their mother.

“You should drop it,” Ragnar warned and your grip only tightened.  
You glared at the king with fierceness in your eyes while the wound on your forehead was still bleeding. You didn’t step back or looked scared you looked rather determined.   
“What is your name?” he questioned and you stayed silent. “Do you understand me?” he asked stepping closer and still he got no answer from you, but the attacked man took that time to say that you were a thrall which was obvious as you were dressed in a thin ruff fabric. “I can’t help you if you don’t talk to me.”  
You scoffed at his words almost laughing in his face. You knew that he only wanted for you to drop the sword and then to send you with someone to punish you. However, whatever he said you knew that you couldn’t really trust him, you have learned to always take everything with caution.   
“What do you want?” he finally asked annoyed as everybody was waiting for him to resolve the situation in front of them.  
“I want my life back,” you said harshly and people around you laughed.  
“You are a thrall, you can’t demand that,” Ragnar said and the second his words left his lips you stepped closer raising your sword to his neck.  
“I’m not demanding, I am offering,” you said pressing the blade harsher against his skin.  
“You are offering? You are offering what exactly?” he narrowed his brows intrigued at your answer.  
“I am offering you to spear you fighter’s lives as I can kill a dozen of them before they kill me,” you spoke confident in your fighting skills. “Or you can choose one to fight me and when I win I want my freedom,” you suggested and Ragnar smiled.  
“If my warriors are weak, how come that you are a thrall, or why didn’t you escape before?” Ragnar questioned tilting his head to the side and doing so something caught his eye.   
“When your men came I was already wounded and still I killed so many of you that day, but I am not a God, only a human. And if I escape where could I go to? To the town, you burned to the ground, to the bodies of raped women and mascaraed men? ” Your eyes wandered to the ground as you remembered the last thing that you have seen before you passed out. You were fighting that day so fiercely not wanting for those who helped you to die and still you failed them and yourself.  
“Alright,” he said after moving his eyes from your collarbone where an old scar was placed. “I have to admit that is a pity that you aren’t our shield maiden if what you are saying is true. And also would I be right if I presume that you intend to stay here?”  
“Yes, I can fight for you,” you confirmed as there was nothing waiting for you anywhere.   
“Alright, but you will first have to fight me,” Ragnar announced before stepping away from you and drawing his sword out of its sheath.   
“I didn’t expect anything less,” you admitted and the sides of your lips actually curved into a small smile as you were given a chance to fight the king.   
“But I have to add something in our deal, it’s clear to me that only way you will count as a loss is if you die, am I right?” he asked waiting for your confirmation and you nodded. “If you win that will tell me that you didn’t lie and you will be a free woman and as a free woman you will choose between my sons as I could use someone who managed to beat me, to tame at least one of them.”  
“For what purpose exactly?” you questioned hoping it wasn’t the only thing that could really be. You wanted to be free again and not tied to somebody.  
“To become your husband,” Ragnar said with a crooked smile gracing his face.   
“Ragnar!” Aslaug warned as she stepped closer but Ragnar only raised his hand for her to step away and ignored her protest.   
“How will I be free with a man trying to control me?”   
“Nobody will control you; you will be a princess,” Ragnar declared partially teasing you as he knew that any thrall if given the chance would take it.   
“I don’t wish to be a princess,” you admitted stepping back from him and with the blade pointing to the ground.   
“Nor did I wish to be a king, but here I am.”   
“I could easily choose the oldest then kill you and him and the queen,” you said and he only laughed at that.   
He laughed not because he didn’t see that as a possibility as if you couldn’t do it but because as you said it yourself you didn’t want to be a princess, then why would you want to be a queen?  
“You could, but you won’t,” he simply shrugged before raising his sword gesturing for you to do the same.  
“And why is that?” you questioned after you declined a shield from one of his men and seeing you not fighting with it he decided to do the same.  
“Because you won’t be just a princess you will be a shield-maiden, if you can beat me I will have you by my side in battle, of course only if you wish that.”

* * *

The whole fight was something that you have never seen yourself. He was one of the best whom you fought. There were moments of doubt when it was close for him to win, but even when you were disarmed you continue fighting.  Even when your knuckles were bleeding and your hands covered with cuts you kept going on and so did he. And the second you threw him on the ground straddling his body with your hands around his neck he smiled; he smiled at you and signaled for the fight to end. You were exhausted and bleeding but it was the first time in a long time that you felt great. You were laying on the ground in the mud next to him smiling while staring at the sky.   
“You really are something else,” Ragnar admitted not bothered to stand up.  
“We all are, but some let life to destroy them, some accept what they shouldn’t and I will never do that,” you said tilting your head to the side to look at him and he was already staring at you.  
“You should go see a Healer.”  
“No, I’m good,” you said before sitting up and he followed your movements. But before you could stand up he grabbed your hand.  
“That wasn’t an offer, I am telling you as I don’t want for my son’s future wife to die from infection.”  
“At least I would have died under my own conditions,” you interjected.   
“If you wanted to die you wouldn’t run away.”  
As you looked back at him you could see on him that he wasn’t talking about the recent incident so you tugged your hand away from him and moved into the crowd. 

* * *

It’s been three days since your fight with the king and although you were asked to come to the Great hall numerous times you decline each until the day when the king himself came to get you. When he came you were a bit surprised as the dinner was already over, but he still led you there.   
Ragnar sat down in his throne and he gestured for you to sit down in the one next to him and reluctantly you obeyed.   
“Why did you lie?” Ragnar asked and you stayed silent staring at your fingers. “You don’t want to talk, well then I will,” he announced before continuing. “One winter ago a future queen should have come to visit our lands, but unfortunately she couldn’t so the king, her father came instead. He apologized and said that his daughter will come in three moons and she never did but we did found out that she had been killed and that her younger brother had become a king after his father died of illness. Now, I know that it’s not rare to have a scar on the collarbone, but to also have similarities with the late king is a bit suspicious.”  
“What do you want?” you asked through your teeth ashamed.  
“I want to know why?”  
“Why what? Why am I here why is he the king, what do you want to know?” you asked tugging at your fingers as you couldn’t force yourself to look at him.  
“I want to know everything,” Ragnar admitted.  
“He always wanted it, he was always the one craving power and he was ready to kill his own sister for it. The scar on my collarbone it’s a part of the story that my father likes to talk about and he told you that too, but not everything. Nobody who trained with me ever hurt me but my brother had as he wanted to hurt me, he wanted to kill me. He would be the one training me the most and he would go for the kill and he always failed, but my father only likes to say that his daughter could beat his younger son and him as well. So after our father died, my brother paid for my death, they attacked me when I was asleep. I killed them all, but I got hurt and my brother already took over. Those who stayed loyal helped me to the village nearby where I was healing and then your men came. I don’t know why they took me as I was good as dead.”  
“Do you want to kill him?” Ragnar asked you and it made you look at him.  
Your brows were furrowed as you couldn’t understand what was there for him.  
“That has nothing to do with you.”  
“It has as you will marry one of my sons,” he pointed out.  
“Is that what you wanted from the beginning?” you stood up turning your body completely towards him. You were angry and you stared at him demanding an explanation.  
“I wanted for my son to marry someone who doesn’t need anything from them. I find it exhausting that all my married sons have married a thrall,” he explained relaxing his body in the throne.   
“I was a thrall a few days ago,” you remained him and he rolled his eyes at your remark.   
“No, you were never a thrall. You are a fighter, you are thirsty for blood and you are smart. For what I heard from your father I was eager to make an alliance with him and you should have already been married to one of my sons. What I’m telling you is that you remind me of my first wife and the one you chose will be one happy bastard.” He admitted as he observed you.   
“I don’t know them,” you said going back to your previous seat. What you said wasn’t completely true as you knew one of them better than others however you knew him while being a thrall not who you actually were.   
“What is there to know?” he shrugged his shoulders as he stared at the doors ahead of you two.   
“I don’t want to just marry someone,” you admitted not completely sure if you wanted to marry at all. You were always the person who would talk about war who would be the first one to spill blood on the battlefield.   
“What do you want to know?” he asked returning his gaze to you.   
“Tell me about them.”  
“Well, you probably have an opinion on them already as you have been here for a while. Bjorn and Ubbe are married which leaves Hvitserk, Sigurd and Ivar,” he simply stated, but it didn’t sound encouraging to you.   
You actually got the impression that it will be hard for him to ‘sell’ one of his sons as it didn’t seem he was glad how they turned out.  “So I can choose between one who sleeps around, one who knows how to play better than use a sword and one who kills anyone who says anything against him?” you asked with a smirk gracing your face. You even had to bit your lip to stop from laughing because the look on his face was priceless.   
“It’s not really like…yeah, it is,” he admitted falling deeper into his seat before rubbing his eyes with the back of his hand.  
“So I choose between unfaithfulness, music, and anger. With that Sigurd sounds the best, but not like a challenge.”  
“It seems that I really failed as a father as you put it like that,” he smiled before you both start laughing. But soon after as laughter died out you wanted his opinion as he was their father and could help you make the right choice.   
“Who do you suggest?”  
“Not Ivar,” Ragnar said lowering his gaze ashamed of saying that.   
“I never thought that you would say that,” you furrowed your brows as it was quite unexpected to hear that from him.   
“You are strong-minded just as he, it would be a bloodbath and not a marriage,” he pointed out something that you were well aware. However, there was something you couldn’t understand and it was how neither of them was asked for their opinion of this marriage.   
“So, you intend to free some random thrall and marry him to them?” you finally asked as you knew that Ivar on his own won’t get married. You spent more time with him than either of brothers. You could say that you knew him, as he treated you well as he knew you were smart, but to him, you will always be a thrall.   
“You are cruel,” Ragnar said pointing a finger at you and you chuckled.   
“You are stupid!”  
“That I am,” Ragnar shake his head before closing his eyes.   
“And what about you?” you asked him and he kept his eyes closed before murmuring his answer.   
“What about me?”  
“You don’t love the queen, but you are interested in me and not even once have you offered for me to be your second wife,” you shrugged before leaning back and bringing your feet onto the seat.   
“You would never accept,” he just shrugged as it was obvious.   
“It’s not like there is anything better for me,” you teased him and he exhaled knowing you will be a trouble.   
“There is.”  
“So, Hvitserk, that’s our decision?” you questioned him before moving in your sit so that your elbows were on the armrests and your head was leaning closer to his chair.  
“You are choosing,” Ragnar said before opening his eyes and moving closer to you.   
“Can you at least suggest me some lovely Viking to be my lover?” you asked innocently.  
“You are asking me to help you go behind my son’s back?” Ragnar rubbed his temple as he now regretted ever adding this to your deal. He was too tired and old for younger versions of him or his wife to tease him.   
“We both now that he will never change, so I won’t have anyone, what about Ivar?”  
“What?” Ragnar was completely confused just staring at you with his mouth slightly opened.  
“Well, you said that it would be a bloodbath in marriage because we would be together the whole time, but if he is my lover th-”  
“Why him?” he questioned.  
“He seems lonely and has nice eyes and he is smart, but he is still mad at me for beating him in chess.”  
“You have second thoughts for choosing Hvitserk.”  
“I don’t know because I don’t actually know either of them,” you shrugged not even caring who will be chosen. “And if I marry Hvitserk, I won’t sleep with him so I will need another man to be a father of my children and Ivar could be that.”  
“You will get to know them,” Ragnar said trying to ignore as you admitted that you have no intention in doing your duties as a wife and he knew that if you really decide to marry Hvitserk that things would get interesting really soon.   
“Yeah, and then it will be too late.”


End file.
